Personal and global DarkFall update

Posted on December 14, 2009 by SynCaine

I have a feeling the action in Agon will be picking up sometime soon. Since the release of CtS, siege action has been light as everyone tests all of the new options and gets re-familiar with everything, both from a personal character specialization perspective and the new requirements for an actual siege. Like the death of bloodwalls in the previous expansion, I think CtS will be the death of ‘siege for kicks’ gameplay, and every siege going forward is going to be a well-calculated move that is going to be bigger and more involved than before.

With cannon damage being increased, we have already seen coastal cities attacked from the sea, mostly in ‘test’ runs as clans/alliances see exactly what can be done with the newly revamped toys, and tests are done to determine exactly what can be done with each ship type. With a greater emphasis on city destruction, and the inability for siege hammers to fill this role, the need for greater and more expensive weapons (cannons, warhulks) is currently high. A quick scan of the Trade channel shows that many factions are trying to gather as much rare ore and other building materials as possible, and the overall price of goods like wood, ore, and even steedgrass has increased significantly.

Also in this whole ‘relearning’ process is the rebalance of mob farming value. Previously ‘low value’ mobs might now be top-notch spawns, while the value of others may have reversed. For example, VAMP has a Dark Dragon spawn near Mehatil on Yssam, and prior to CtS the spawn was considered of low value due to the effort/reward ratio. With the CtS mob rebalance, that same spawn is now a very profitable spot for a group of four. The dragon is still dangerous, and takes some effort to kill, and has about a 45 minute respawn timer, but now his reward is great enough to justify the effort in gathering a small group and killing him. Same story for the Red Dragon that now flies around Yssam as well, although the rules around that mob are a little different given his 24 hour respawn timer and much higher difficulty level.

For me personally two mobs have become great sources of income. Geared up with a high-ranked one-hander and a battlehorn, a short trip east from Mehatil takes me to a solo Oak Lord spawn, with a Selentine Golem spawn in close proximity. Thanks to the battlehorn’s increased hitpoints, I’m able to mount-kill both mobs before they kill my mount (the Selentine Golem comes close sometimes), and both have interesting loot tables. The Oak Lord drops/skins for timber, wood, quartz, steedgrass, along with herbs and such. The Selentine Golem, as expected, drops/skins for selentine ore. In the time it usually takes me to kill a mob, loot/skin it, and heal my mount, the other spawn is back up and ready. It’s a nice break from ground-farming wildtribe or elementals, and also gives me some time to skill-up my one-handed axe skill.

The Selentine Golem in particular is of high value because selentine ore is needed to craft Full Plate armor. The other requirement is to have your armorsmith skill at 100, and then to purchase master armorsmith. I’m currently at 97 armorsmithing after burning through every last bit of wood and iron last night, but some mining/logging should get me to 100 in the next day or two. The bonus of all that crafting is I now have a few full sets of post-patch (higher magic resistance) plate/scale to either use myself or sell. Once I hit 100 I plan to make myself a full set of Full Plate to use for farming thanks to the Selentine Golem (which I no doubt will lose the first time out to some PKs).

Just to put things into perspective, the Selentine Golem usually drops one piece of selentine ore, and on a successful skinning can give a second piece. Two selentine ore can be smelted into a selentine ingot (assuming you don’t fail at smelting, because if you do it eats a selentine ore). Each piece of Full Plate requires a good amount of gold, iron, leather, and one selentine ingot, with the chest requiring three (I believe, it might only be two). So yes, a full set of Full Plate is a hefty investment, but assuming I don’t lose it to PKs, it’s durability will be high enough to withstand a good amount of farming, and once it’s durability gets low it will be converted into a PvP set, one that will make surviving on the battlefield a little easier.

Between personal goals and the upcoming storm that will be ships and warhulks, there is a lot to look forward to for me in DarkFall. I think my next goal after completing the Full Plate armor will be to save up enough money to try and buy a house at some village. Currently the drop rate is still very low, and prices are still rather high (I believe just a cottage still goes for 50k or so), but I’m hoping either the drop rate is increased or demand subsides. Of course once I have a house, and assuming its location is decent enough, I’ll have to try and find/buy a player vendor, another item which is incredibly rare at the moment.

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)

Posted in Combat Systems, crafting, Darkfall Online, Housing, MMO design, Site update | 11 Comments

Upgrading to Windows 7 64 bit.

Posted on December 11, 2009 by SynCaine

This post is going to either be extremely helpful, or just show how far my head has been in the sand for the last few years.

I installed Windows 7 64 bit a few days ago, and my FPS in DarkFall went from 25-40 to 80-150. Which you know, is good, really good actually, and far above expectations. Is Windows 7 just that amazing? Not exactly, although installing it was a breeze, and so far so good in terms of functionality and lack-of-annoyance.

You see my previous operating system was Vista 32 bit, because at the time I purchased the rig Vista 64 was still having driver issues that I simply did not want to deal with. At the time my system had 4 gigs of ram and a 512mb video card (8800GT). It ran everything I threw at it like a champ and for the longest time I had no issues. Then I ‘upgraded’ to a 295GTX, and that’s when the issues started. My overall FPS did not really increase, but I started getting BSOD errors sporadically. I was also getting rather low FPS in DarkFall compared to others with similar or even lesser rigs.

One random day I was talking to a real tech guys at work, someone who builds his own server cluster at home for fun and all that. I told him about my issues and he explained to me exactly how the RAM limitations on a 32 bit system work. I knew it limits your system RAM, but what I did not know is that the RAM limit is actually for ALL memory, be it system provided or from your graphics card. So when I went from a 512mb card to one with 1792mb of memory, all that did was ‘replace’ some existing system memory with video memory (or something like that, tech people feel free to fill in the exact details). With so much spare memory, my system would occasionally get mixed up and hence BSOD errors. This also explained why getting the new card gave me such a limited performance increase.

So if you are still running a 32 bit operating system, and are considering upgrading to Windows 7 64 bit, DO IT! With RAM being so cheap, and midrange video cards packing as much memory as they do, you should be able to easily take advantage of the upgrade. And at $110 (amazing special I think?), buying Windows 7 is a really cheap way to see a very noticeable performance increase. Obviously the amount depends on how badly the 32 bit OS is currently choking you, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say my situation is a rare stroke of stupidity.

Posted in Darkfall Online, Random, Site update | 24 Comments

Sandbox Envy

Posted on December 10, 2009 by SynCaine

Having now seen the issue from both sides, I’d like to talk about something I’ll call ‘Sandbox Envy’. Sandbox Envy is basically what happens when you read about the really cool stuff happening in a sandbox game and compare it to what you do in your game (most applicable if that MMO is a themepark, and this increases the more ‘themepark’ your themepark is).

Think about the difference between watching the famous “MORE DOTS” Onyxia video from WoW versus reading about a massive heist in EVE. The Onyxia video works because anyone who has ever done that encounter can relate to what is happening; only (hopefully) their raid leader was not as extreme in calling for DoTs. The story of an EVE heist is interesting because it’s so unique, it has aspects of real life applied to a virtual world, and it just seems to reflect everything great about the Massive and Multiplayer parts of the MMO genre.

Sandbox Envy occurs because such stories are the SportsCenter of the MMO world. They are the highlight of in-game activity, and they don’t include the countless hours of preparation, downtime, or ‘nothing happened’ space that also exists. Baseball on SportsCenter is always action packed and full of great plays, and if all you know of baseball is what you see from SportsCenter you might think it’s that way all the time. If you actually watch baseball, you know it’s 95% ‘nothing’ with a few critical moments of action (and this is coming from someone who loves to watch baseball).

If all you know of EVE or other sandbox-style games is what you have read from blogs, you might go into the game expecting 1200v1200 fleet battles, bank scams, or masterful market manipulation to happen daily. Instead you log in and find that mining is really boring, those epic moments happen once in a blue moon (to you), and that built-up hype you created for yourself is quickly crushed. If you are on a 10 day free trial, it’s very easy to walk away after a day or so and write the game off. Worst still is then claiming you have ‘played’ the game and it’s nothing but really boring stuff, without quantifying that when you say ‘played’, you mean for a few hours on a free trial. But context is about as common on blogs and message boards as those 1200v1200 fleet battles you dreamed of joining.

Sandbox Envy also occurs because too many gamers lie to themselves about the type of player they are. Not many accept that they just enjoy half-assing it and getting rewarded, and not many want to ‘work’ to experience something great. Most players ARE the grunt in an army; they just don’t want their game telling them that. Not many dream of mining the billions and billions of ISK needed to make a Titan, while everyone would love to be the pilot letting off a Doomsday shot at a critical moment in some history fleet battle, their name forever link to that event.

Themeparks fit in nicely here because the NPCs don’t mind repeating for the millionth time that you are indeed the one true hero who saved them. They work well because basically everyone can acquire ‘epic’ rewards for doing ‘heroic’ actions and being the world’s hero (at least in your phased version of the world). What they don’t offer is those truly unique MMO moments because the rails don’t allow for that to happen, but even if they did most would not be willing to put in the ‘work’ to get there. If anything, because the opportunity does NOT exist, the average player does not feel he is ‘missing out’ on something, or that the best stuff is not ‘accessible’ to them.

Not that this makes a sandbox superior, at least not to all gamers. While a themepark will never offer that ultimate high, it does (or should) offer a steady stream of good entertainment. Even better, the best experience is frontloaded, so as a new player you experience the fun of leveling, new gear, new areas, and new quests faster at the beginning then you will towards the end. In contrast, the first few days of a sandbox are usually spent aimlessly trying to find your way, with little to stop you from having an outright boring experience if you don’t know what you are doing. Hell even a veteran in a sandbox will find himself doing ‘boring’ stuff like traveling for 25 minutes just to reach a location, or other ‘boring’ stuff like skill grinding or farming for cash.

EVE has enjoyed its massive success in part because of its rich history of player-driven events, and those events have perhaps been its greatest advertising tool. Yet they also create somewhat of an illusion, because while the ‘action’ in those stories is great, day-to-day action in EVE is far more mundane. The true decision any gamer has to make is whether they prefer the steady and somewhat guaranteed delivery method of a themepark, or the overall slower pace with far greater spikes that is a good sandbox.

For me personally, I don’t view MMO gaming as just something to kill time, but rather as my primary hobby. With so much dedicated to it, I don’t have trouble seeing the ‘value’ in those down moments that ultimately lead to the great highs, and the steady stream of themepark content is now a little too familiar for me. In a way, once you get use to the highs of a sandbox, it’s difficult to get excited about the peak of a themepark. At the same time, I completely understand the appeal of a themepark to someone just casually spending some time with a game. For them, they don’t want to ‘work’ to get some entertainment, because to them it’s not worth that much. Sure experiencing the sandbox high would be great, but not at the expensive of all the downtime associated with it.

Perhaps that is indeed the natural evolution of the MMO player. We all start at the casual level just poking around. Some of us enjoy it enough to want more, and we shift from the game becoming recreation to a hobby. If the above is true, and a company like Blizzard knows it, maybe that Blizzard version of EVE is not as far fetched? What better way to ‘advance’ the millions of casuals playing WoW today then to get them into a Blizzard-branded ‘next level’ game?

Posted in EVE Online, MMO design, Random, World of Warcraft | 74 Comments

Aventurine pays up

Posted on December 9, 2009 by SynCaine

As if the high from an epic sea battle was not enough, just this morning I received my first Community Publisher-related payment from Aventurine via PayPal. Very painless process (I entered my paypal info into my account page, and the money got transferred automatically), and a nice bonus for doing something (writing about MMOs) I would be doing anyway. Interesting to note is that this payment is for US sales only, and my EU sales (shown in Euros on the account page) have not been paid yet. I’m curious to see what conversion rate is used, and when that payment will arrive.

What remains interesting and something I’ll continue to track is the percentage of link clicks to purchases, and how they correlate to my DarkFall-related blog posts. Will epic tales of being a sea pirate inspire more people to give the game a shot? Do days of overall higher blog traffic result in a higher percentage of sales, even if the traffic is generated by a general MMO post rather than something directly DF related? How much do big updates like “Conquer the Seas” drive people to make a purchase? What effect will a boxed copy becoming available have on sales here? What effect on sales will the conclusion of the current 6 month pricing special have, and will any future promotions also increase sales?

Fun stuff to track, and hopefully it will lead to some interesting data analysis once I have acquired enough of it to make a further post.

Posted in Darkfall Online, Site update | 45 Comments

First taste of Naval combat in DarkFall? Sweet, very sweet.

Posted on December 9, 2009 by SynCaine

Yarrr.

And not a wannabe Yarrr where the only Yarrr’ing that happens is when you put on your pirate hat in town and pretend something pirate happened. No no. Real, actual pirate-like stuff happened last night, and it was glorious.

First a little ‘not so glorious’ Yarr’ing (but still actual sea stuff, again no ‘look at me’ hat talk). The new racial abilities must be bought in your own races cities, be it a player or NPC city. Since VAMP and Co. don’t own a human city, I figured I might as well make a trip down to the human capital and pick the new stuff up, and check out the barber while I’m at it. Being up on Yssam (top left sub-continent), I could either take a long ass ride on mount, or a shorter but still long trip via raft. Since I had just looted a raft recently, the choice was somewhat obvious.

I deployed my little raft and set sail, solo, south towards human lands. This was the first time I’ve ever been the pilot of a vehicle in DarkFall, and it took me a moment to get the feel of it. Along the way I wanted to check out one remote island that had trolls on it, as I needed to kill some trolls for a quest and this seemed to be the best spot. As I got closer I saw a player in the water swimming out at me, and a quick turn of the raft left me fleeing while arrows flew to my left and right (thank god the guy was a terrible shot). When you are controlling a raft you get a zoomed-out view, but the only thing you can do is pilot the raft and spin the camera (similar to when you are resting). You can’t move, use anything, or block. If you stop piloting the raft, it slows down and sits in the water until you or anyone else grabs the wheel.

With that near-disaster avoided, the remaining 25 minute or so trip was uneventful for the most part, yet the entire time I was swinging the camera around like a mad man praying I don’t run across anyone and get my raft jacked. At one point I saw another solo-pilot raft sailing along, but we avoided each other cautiously. Other than that one raft and some sharks (they don’t attack rafts), I made it to land, rode to the capital, and got my skills. I never did get to the barber though, because the call to gather up was given in alliance chat.

The plan for the night was to capture the northern sea fortress, and we would be heading out towards it about an hour before it went ‘live’ (the new map shows when it goes vulnerable, which really makes these type of coordinated plans possible). VAMP had about 15 people, and I think Nemesis had another 20 or so. We launched a total of 6 rafts (I believe) and headed out.

The sea fortress itself is huge. I mean massive huge. And not in a silly ‘make it look big to look big’ way, but rather huge in that it takes a lot of manpower to cover all sides and entrances, yet still cramped once you are in the tunnels. It’s very impressive. In order to get up to the cannon level, you must climb two sets of ladders, the first from the water and the second, much longer ladder takes you up into one of four cannon rooms. The rooms are connected by what can only be described as McDonald’s playland tunnels (the stuff before the ball pit, remember?), with a central circular area accessible from the middle of each tunnel. The very top is only accessible with some clever use of magic, most noticeably Wall of Force. That high up however, it’s difficult to see enemies, let alone fire effectively on them. In the water around the sea fortress are magically enchanted spiked rocks, which bounce you away if you touch them. I’m not sure what effect they have if you crash a ship on them however, but I do know rafts also ‘bounce’ off. It’s all good stuff, and certainly a very unique area to fight over.

About an hour into our defense I was worried we would not see any action, as reports were coming in that a large fight was happening at the southern sea fortress. Another report came in that one raft piloted by Dominion was eaten by the Kraken and never reached us. Luckily the night would not end uneventfully, and soon enough enemies showed up to contest for the fortress.

The first enemies to arrive came in a Brigantine (small-ish warship), and this was our first test of the four fortress cannons. To put it simply, they hurt. A lot. 70-140 damage with a good rate of fire. As the Brigantine got within range, the south-western cannon started shooting and vent lit up with “Ohh ish” cheers as the kill log started spitting out names. Seems we killed a good 10 or so players with just a few shots of the cannon (the Brig has only one deck, so you can’t really hide). A sizable group of us jumped into the water and deployed rafts to try and overtake the Brig, now damaged and slowed thanks to the fortress cannon.

I was piloting one raft with four others aboard, and as we were getting closer to the Brig its cannons started shooting at us and the other rafts. With each hit the raft got slower, but we had some repair shards and were able to keep going. I took a few cannon balls shots, but again the others on the raft were able to heal me and on we went. As the Brig was turning we noticed that while we killed some players, many more remained and were starting to jump overboard towards us while others rained down magic/arrows from the deck. Oops. A quick (for a raft) 180 and the call to head back to the fortress was given (the Brig was out of cannon range at this point). They chased us for a bit, but eventually broke off and everyone regrouped back inside.

It was at this point that things started to get a little crazy, as a report came in that two enemy Brigs have been spotted to the north and were starting to fire on the fortress (it was open for capture at this point). Along with the ships attacking, we also spotted many attackers in the water looking to climb up into the fortress itself. We defended the ladders, pushing the first wave back, and eventually pushed into the water itself to clean up the remaining enemies. After some tense/fun water fights, the ocean was littered with tombstones of the dead (Aventurine should add a ‘dead at sea’ tombstone).

One of the two enemy Brigs was badly damaged from cannon fire, and not wanting a nice and expensive toy to get away, a huge push was made to rush it and try to take it over. Three rafts were deployed (I was once again piloting one) and plenty of others were swimming full speed towards the smoking ship. Within 10 seconds or so of spawning my raft, I was dead on its deck. WTF? Seems an over-eager fortress cannon gunner thought my raft was the enemy, and after two blasts I was down. Those cannons need some fine-tuning me-thinks. Luckily a clan-mate (thanks Ghost) hopped on the raft and rezzed me, and together we continued towards the Brig.

As we pulled up next to it, we could see that the deck was mostly in VAMP/NEM control, with the last few enemies either being killed or hopping overboard. Victory! Again the sea was a graveyard of tombstones, and we had people diving overboard to collect the spoils, as our enemies brought some very nice stuff to fight with. In addition to gear, they also brought a sizable amount of gun powder, the material needed to fire all cannons. It was at this point that my night went a little south.

As I was piloting a raft to collect loot with a few others, the remaining enemy fighters who had survived emerged from the water and started blasting the raft deck. Among the celebration and confusion, help was slow to arrive (some were already back at the fortress), and our little group of three was taken down in quick order. Bastards. To make it worse I believe they escaped after their little ambush.

Respawning back in our city, I listed over vent as we used the stolen Brig to capture the sea fortress and collect its reward. While I almost made it, it was overall a great night for our alliance, and I think everyone came away from the experience extremely impressed. Naval warfare has finally arrived in DarkFall, and as more clans build bigger ships, things should only get more thrilling.

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)

Posted in Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, MMO design, PvP | 14 Comments

DarkFall: Good PvP video of after-CtS combat.

Posted on December 8, 2009 by SynCaine

In order to show off good PvP in DarkFall I’m somewhat forced to linking other players videos. I don’t record DarkFall while I play, and more importantly, because my skills are not even close to the guy in this video, you would end up watching 20 second clips of me chasing someone around and ultimately dying, and that would only be fun for so long. This was recorded after the most recent patch, and as you can see it features far more archery, melee, and mounted combat instead of the AoE-fest that was all too common pre-patch.

The first fight is versus two skilled opponents initially and goes from there. The second fight is versus six members of NEW, the starter clan in DarkFall, and if watched closely a new player can pick up a lot of tips on how to take someone down and what the best strategy is for such a situation.

I found both fights overall very entertaining (I watched them on mute, so can’t comment on music selection), and I think the video does a good job of highlighting the hectic and yet calculated combat in DarkFall. Even when outnumbered or close to death, the player in the video remains calm, which is a very enviable trait. Good stuff iHope!

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)

Posted in Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, PvP | 4 Comments

DarkFall: CtS’s first fixer patch.

Posted on December 8, 2009 by SynCaine

I said yesterday that I’m fine with Aventurine launching Conquer the Seas with some (ok, a ton) of bugs as long as they get fixed within a week or so. It seem the QA community (the paying players) worked overtime, because yesterday a patch was released that corrected many (most?) of the new bugs. I was only online for a short time last night, but I did notice that mobs were scaled back to more reasonable levels (they are still tougher than pre-patch, but not impossible-tough like yesterday) while having their loot increased.

For example, a wildtribe warrior (uber goblin) pre-patch dropped 60 gold and a rank 40 or 50 weapon, plus the small chance of some other random stuff. Last night the same mob was dropping between 150 and 300 gold (the wide range is a welcome change IMO), the same rank 40 or 50 weapon but now with a chance of it being enchanted, and the ‘random stuff’ seems to be dropping more frequently and in slightly larger quantities. The overall end result is that opening a mobs tombstone after you take it down is more interesting thanks to the added randomness, and it sounded like (from clan chat) that overall tougher mobs are now more rewarding, while less mobs (like starter goblins) are worth just as much as they were pre-patch, but now with more randomness as well.

I should have some more time tonight to hopefully see how PvP has changed, as well as checking in on some other mob spawns and doing some general exploring (I was able to loot a raft off a player over the weekend, and look forward to using it). One thing I also need to do is make a trip back to the human starting area and pick up my racial abilities, along with checking out the new barber.

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)

Posted in Darkfall Online, Patch Notes | 2 Comments

DarkFall: “Conquer the Seas” Expansion first impressions

Posted on December 7, 2009 by SynCaine

With one gaming-heavy weekend over, I’m going to talk about what Conquer the Seas has brought to DarkFall, but first let me toss this out for everyone. On one side of the MMO dev spectrum you have Aventurine, and on the other you have Blizzard. Blizzard believe in polish>content, and so while WoW is the slowest MMO to update, the updates (usually) work and deliver what’s promised. On the other side is AV, who in one year have added more to DF than Bliz has in five, but apparently view live servers and paying customers as their test server and QA staff. In a perfect world I’d like AV content at Blizzard quality, but given a choice, sign me up for QA. Where you fall in this spectrum is something to consider carefully before signing up for DarkFall. If bugs drive you crazy, more than not seeing content updates for 6+ months, current-day DarkFall might upset you more than delight you with each patch/expansion. You have been warned.

That said; let’s start with the major theme of the expansion, ship combat and the new sea fortresses. For starters, Aventurine has somehow managed to re-introduce the same bug they had in their previous expansion (elemental bows doing damage to village stones) to this one (those bows now deal damage to the ‘cannon-only’ sea fortress). How does that even happen? Of course players quickly figured this out, and both fortresses were captured quickly. The good news is their rewards are substantial, the bad news is that the current bug makes bringing an actual ship pointless. But fear not, because actually MAKING a ship is also pointless atm, since despite being in the patch notes, ship costs remain unchanged, if not higher (VAMP turned in close to 15 Leenspar keys to try and get an astrolob, no luck). The Kraken looks very cool from the videos posted, and rumor has it the beast drops good-enough loot (how it was killed remains a bit shady). Big bag-o-fail here AV.

Another area of fail, although this one I’ll call semi-fail, is wildlife. They have been added to the game, there is a good variety of them, and they look cute/cool. The don’t really roam how I would have pictured it, and currently they feel a little too much like a non-aggressive mob spawn to be honest. That said, a clan member and I did have some fun chasing a few down on our mounts (they do run away from you, and they do run further than a regular mob), and they do interact with each other and aggressive mobs (we thought we had come across some players farming, and as we snuck up to the area, we watched as some mobs were chasing a couple of foxes down, funny stuff). Overall wildlife is a good addition to DarkFall, but the implementation needs some work. No report on any epic loot, the few I killed skinned for very basic stuff (mean, leather, Q1 horns and teeth).

Speaking of aggressive mobs, this expansion has also made more than a few mobs impossible, and overall raised the difficulty of PvE too high. The major problem is with caster mobs, who now basically machinegun out spells at you with aim-bot accuracy. When a Deathless Mage spell hits you for 63 in the face, and you have 300ish hitpoints, and those spells are coming at you at a rate of one every two seconds, well, good luck. Even the lowly goblin shaman, a mob new players will be facing, has a tendency to cast his spells a little too fast, and while my character can still take them down, I can only imagine how devastating they are for newbies.

In addition to the spell bug (it has to be a bug), the new mob vulnerability system is a little too restrictive. Rather than fire elementals now taking more damage from water spells, the system instead makes them basically immune to everything BUT water spells. I’m sure you can understand why that’s not exactly ideal. Many mobs are now very resistant to archery (the preferred method of killing mobs pre-patch), and while itself not a terrible change, when you combine it with jacked-up mobs, it leaves many of them in the ‘impossible to kill’ range. Grouping up to kill them helps, but then the problem of time/effort creeps in, as those mobs don’t drop ENOUGH loot to justify bringing some friends. I think the idea of group-only mobs is a good one, but they need loot tables to match.

Speaking of loot, its variety has been increased from the mobs I’ve seen killed. Gold amount is now more varied, and the ‘random’ items mobs would drop seem to drop more often and their table has been expanded. The core stuff like weapons and armor seems to remain unchanged, which is fine and still goes along with the ‘if a mob is using it, he will likely drop it’ design. Overall this is a good change, but some work needs to be done to the higher-end mobs and their rewards, if they indeed are intended to be group-only kills.

The major player-impact change in the expansion is the reduced importance of magic, specifically AoE spells. In this regard I think the expansion succeeded on many fronts. For starters, heavy armor (chain, banded, scale, plate, full plate, inferno, dragon) now has MUCH higher spell resists. Wearing a mix of scale/plate will allow you to withstand magic damage in much the same way it allowed you to mitigate melee/archery damage pre-patch, at the expanse of increased encumbrance. This encumbrance makes not only casting very difficulty, but also starts to penalize your archery damage. The biggest sign of success was when about 20 VAMP members were heading out to PvP on some rafts, and we noticed almost everyone was wearing a different combination of armor based on their preferred combat type (melee/archery/magic). Pre-patch everyone was in full bone. That’s a huge win on many levels.

Along with improved armor and spell cooldowns, the other major, major changes to combat in DarkFall are all the new specialization options introduced. Players now have some options for both melee and archery specialization, with costs ranging from 400 gold up to 3000. Each options brings its share of bonuses/penalties, and already some difficult choices exist, most notably the choice between jump-shooting and water-shooting with archery. As we quickly learned, following someone into the water without aqua-shot is asking for death, while the ability to jump-shoot is certainly a very useful tool for many PvP’ers. Some tuning will be needed (currently the side-step ability for melee is a little lacking), but overall I think specializations are a tremendous addition to DarkFall, and will truly allow players to customize their character based on their preferred method of play. I’m sure I’ll go into more depth and my personal preferences in another blog post soon.

VAMP made a little trip to one of the new Trade Route centers, and I came away with the impression that these will be a very nice addition to the game. The basics are you ‘invest’ a certain amount of gold (500 minimum) at one center, you get a trade backpack, and you must deliver it to another trade center on the other side of the world, the faster the better. If you succeed, you get paid out a % of your investment, with perhaps an additional reward. If someone kills you along the way they get 80% of your investment. If you disconnect you get 50% back. I think that’s how it works, but not having done it myself yet I’m obviously not 100%. On our trip the center was about to close, but we still found some PvP in the area, and that after all is the point. More on this at a later date I’m sure.

Then there is a ton of little or not-so-little stuff. Villages, trade centers, and sea fortresses now all appear on the world map, along with a timer on when they go vulnerable. This is huge, and should really push all of them to become better PvP hotspots, as well as make it easier for clans to plan ahead and organize village-capture groups. Armor now has a lengthy equip timer (3-10 seconds per piece), which is a good combat-related balance change (no more switching into robes to cast a heal and back), but makes gearing up/down at a bank a more lengthy process. It’s a sacrifice in gamer convenience for PvP balance, and while many will bitch, I think it’s a good change. It also makes quickly gearing up/down at a bank when your city/hamlet gets raided more difficult, which again I think is a good change. The new tombstones are nice, and the glow around them makes finding them much easier. New splash screens never hurt. Etc.

Overall the future impact that CtS will have on DarkFall is very promising, but its short-term impact is somewhat painful. Given that Aventurine has already stated they plan to patch all week (and very likely beyond) to resolve issues, I doubt the major stuff will be around for long, but I don’t think expecting the game not to go back to a beta state after every expansion is too much to ask, is it? But considering I spent the better of ten hours in-game the last three days, even the minor/major bugs can’t overshadow the fact that DF today is more fun (PvP-wise anyway) than it was pre-patch.

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)

Posted in Combat Systems, crafting, Darkfall Online, Housing, MMO design, Patch Notes, PvP | 16 Comments

DarkFall: Kraken eats a ship video.

Posted on December 5, 2009 by SynCaine

This looks like it might be a tiny bit of fun…

:head re-explodes)

(No expansion on NA still, plus some ForumFall’ing about bugs with archery and PvE on EU)

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)

Posted in Darkfall Online, MMO design, Patch Notes | 25 Comments

DarkFall Expansion notes

Posted on December 5, 2009 by SynCaine

Um… yea.

:head explodes:

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)

Posted in Darkfall Online, Patch Notes | 16 Comments